


"Consequences? I got your 'consequences' right here"

by julifolo



Category: Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, F/M, Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 1999-09-27
Updated: 1999-09-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 16:12:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julifolo/pseuds/julifolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my proposal for a 'defining moment' to sketch how 5th season might have been originally intended, with Susan on the station. Originally, Byron was to be paired with Susan, with Lyta claiming him after Susan walked away. Also in the JumpNow FanFiction Archive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Consequences? I got your 'consequences' right here"

   "Consequences? I got your 'consequences' right here"  
        ... a 5th season AU 

 

*****

   Why did I even bother? Susan asked herself. 

   She picked up a shard, black with carbon, borrowed gloves against the sharp edges.

   Hazmat had reported the area was nontoxic, so she was down here to look at the mess. Except, of course, she couldn't just look when there was litter on the floor. It was obvious that the crew chief wanted to tell her to put on a suit, but he held in his complaint. If Stephen knew she was down here he wouldn't have been silent. She was putting stress on her lungs after inhalation treatments, but she didn't want to put that much distance between her and her mistake. She had to put her hands on it, her face in it. It didn't matter if the ash and residue smeared her blue uniform. When would she ever learn? 

   This was her station, her responsibility. 

   I've risked everything, thinking with my heart, not my head. Will my telepathy remain a secret? The family all promised they wouldn't tell, but there will be questions. Bester might have guessed. 

   Byron hadn't loved me (he said he loved me, I felt the love as he died) I was a way to get more. She didn't want to admit the feelings she had felt from him. How could he love her and do this to her? She didn't want to admit how she had responded, that it had felt good to let someone near again. 

   He had driven a wedge between her and John, the others. Can I make this up to John? I promised him I had this under control. I wasn't where I needed to be. I couldn't stop Bester from getting on board again, let this get so far gone that EarthGov sent in him and the hounds behind my back. John found out too late, had been pulled into the ugliness. 

   How can I look him in the face again? 

   She'd have to. John will give me another chance -- no matter the contrary evidence, he trusted her. I don't deserve the support, but I'll take it. Where else but here is 'home'? I was wrong to have let him down like this. I was wrong to steal time from him, time he didn't have. Why didn't I listen? 

   "I owe it to Marcus," I told them, "to try once more." 

   Look what happened. Look at the mess my lover made of my station. Why can't suicides be considerate? It's not as if he was going to be around to clean up his mess. He left it for others to do. (Mother was considerate. She'd opened her veins in the bathtub. All the police had to do was open the drain to send her blood into the sewers.) 

   Byron's death wasn't an illusion, the way he and the family tried to protect their nest (the workmen put down their torches and ran, seeing snakes and monsters). She had felt them die. He had held all the minds in his, reaching out to her. It didn't matter that she couldn't see, eyes closed and her back to him; that meant she had breathed in less of the fire when the room exploded. John and Bester had been the most scorched, both screaming "no!" -- lungs emptied, they gasped the toxins in. Gasping and coughing, she and they retreated as the foam came down. 

   Pieces of the ceiling surface had dropped to the floor, damaged by explosion and heat, shaken loose by the decontamination scrub. 

   Clatter. One more piece in the bin. 

   Another. And another. More. The sound made a rhythm. 

   Susan glanced around her and the pattern was broken. 

   Lyta was there, at the edge of it, legs crossed, praying. 

   The sight pulled Susan's rage out of silence. She strode to Lyta's position then dropped to one knee to get closer. "This isn't a shrine," Susan hissed. "It's a garbage disposal!" 

   Lyta's composed position turned to cowering. Whatever power the Vorlons had given her had been tainted by their errors and Lyta's infinite foolishness. Psi ratings and Vorlon witchery meant nothing against Truth or the Wrath of God. Susan had always had her certainty. That had aided Byron as he taught her. 

   "You killed him," Susan said. Her whole mind screamed that as truth. <How dare you say you loved him?>

   "No. That's not fair!" Lyta said, protesting that her love was real. "Bester made him kill himself. He didn't have any choice." She shrank away instead of attacking. Susan was in front of her, but all Lyta could hear was the echo of Byron's mindvoice. 

   Byron had trained Susan as he had trained his people to resist the Psi Corps, their own base instincts. ... Except Susan wasn't afraid to admit her anger. Byron claimed he was a pacifist. Tried to force himself to be a pacifist. She had been in his mind. He believed his suicide/fratricide to be passive resistance. <There's nothing else we can do.> He'd told Peter which canister to puncture, and to focus the blast toward their side of the chamber. He was mad with anger and died rather than admit it. Susan hadn't crippled herself as Byron had. She wouldn't have murdered her own because she feared to know herself. 

   <I had almost gotten his attention *image of a 2x4* and then you threw Vorlons at him, just to make him look at you. *flames and horror of the fire* You killed him!>

   <no> Lyta shrank away in denial, her Vorlon powers impotent. 

   <Yes,> Susan insisted, and replayed the memory for Lyta: "What have they done to me?" Lyta had come to him in tears. Susan had been standing beside him, their arms across each other's backs. Lyta had talked only to Byron. The Vorlons were gone beyond the Rim, but Lyta talked as if they still lived in her head. "They won't let me look. Can you see?" 

   Byron had trying to step away, something inside was giving warning. Susan had been very angry at the interruption (one more of Lyta's interruptions) -- Byron was very aware of Susan's anger, and he didn't want to give any encouragement to Lyta's infatuation. He wasn't interested. But Lyta pushed and pushed. 

   Byron looked. What he saw destroyed him. He had no 'self' to cling to; he had discovered he was a made thing. The only reason he existed was to be a Vorlon weapon against the Shadows. It drove him mad, and it was Lyta's fault. 

   <You stole him from me.> Susan sent all her rage against the weeping woman. <This is what you killed> Susan showed her everything, so that there would be no room for Lyta to say that Susan was lying. <You want him you can have him.> She set her anger against her own thin walls so Lyta would see. Everything they had done together: touching, laughing, the awful arguments -- Truth against illusion. 

   How Byron would twist away, offering horrid jokes to deflect Susan's questions. Susan trying to show him the illogic of his plans. How could he be a telepath among normals and not understand their fears? What it felt like for Susan to have what Lyta wanted. Every caress -- 

   What she found made Lyta want to withdraw. The echoes of Byron drew her ever inward. 

   Susan showed Lyta what it felt to give to Byron what she wished she'd given to another. Everything was grief for Marcus. In Byron's arms was the only time she had been weak, weeping for her loss. It had been only time Byron had been human, gently letting her cry. "He was a good man," he'd told her. He had pushed aside the veil of her guilt, so he could see the ranger's smile in her memory, and then he showed that smile back to her. 

   Why couldn't I have let Marcus come that close? she whispered in her core. He wanted so little. Why? Byron had understood, he had begun to help her heal. Then, like everyone else, he was gone. 

   <It's your fault, Lyta,> Susan's mindvoice hissed. <What he found in your mind broke him.> He was already mad; he wouldn't listen. What a waste. <You're the reason Peter died. And Robin, and Cheryl, ... > She listed all the names of the skeletons in the morgue. <*Murderer.*>

   Lyta protested, sending back images of Bester as the killer, Byron as hero, she as the loyal follower. <I loved him. I loved him more than you! Psi Corps is to blame.>

   <Delude yourself, then,> Susan shrugged, letting the contact sever. <I'll have no more part in it.>

   She stood, leaving the other woman to her pain. It was time to leave; time to clean up the mess she was avoiding, problems that couldn't be solved by throwing pieces into a waste bin. 

   Marcus, why did you die? Maybe I can make it up to you, to John. How badly I failed. John, my best friend. My only best friend still alive. Not dead yet. Nineteen years and counting. Before his time, I'll have to watch him put into the ground. It's not fair. 

   Life's never fair. 

   She walked with Marcus' breath in her lungs, colder than ice.

**Author's Note:**

> These are some notes I wrote in the late 90s, around the time I was writing the above story.
> 
> In the original, Byron would have had a relationship with Susan (& net result, she would have realized Marcus was her last chance) -- it still would have been Lyta, not Susan, that carried on his work. I doubt Susan would have sanctioned his suicide the way Lyta did. The current script has him a tragic hero. Susan refuting & Lyta taking over would be a split decision.
> 
> Giving Lyta both parts of the plot changes the story significantly, unless I'm wrong about how I think Ivanova would have reacted  
> to the suicide. I don't dislike Byron, I think he was misguided. Paired with an arguer (Susan) who would have forcefully contested some of his  
> choices I think there would be more wrong-headed stubbornness along with the pacifism. Byron & Susan would have made more interesting 'sparks', a better case of 'opposites attract', a better case of conflicting loyalties.
> 
> Being someone who collects what-if scenarios, I speculated on "what might have been". So my speculation is that if  
> Byron had gotten good advice from a strong person who cared for him (or was trying to care) and he ignored Susan's advice and  
> made a stupid choices anyway (telepathic spying and suicide) -- I would *not* like him and would be more mad about how he hurt Susan and got other people killed than I would be sad to see him die.


End file.
